In order to fully appreciate the significance of localized marketing, we first need to understand the dominant forms of marketing that preceded it. There have been three major technological disruptions over the past century that fundamentally changed the marketing landscape.

There have never been more ways to find a Starbucks. You can go to the store locator on the website: chances are, it will be the mobile version, because that’s how local search happens more often than not. Or you could use the Google Maps, Apple Maps, Bing Maps, or HERE Maps apps. Or you could […]

Instagram presents an unparalleled opportunity to build and share a brand — to show a different side by leveraging this highly visual medium. Plus, the rate of customer engagement is off the charts compared to other social channels. What most marketers don’t realize, though, is that Instagram is also a local marketing channel. The reason for this knowledge gap is that, unlike Facebook and Twitter, Instagram is very difficult to manage natively…

One of the more surprising revelations from a recent comScore study is that Facebook is now the #2 mobile app for local search, behind Google Maps. This puts it ahead of Mapquest, Bing, and Apple Maps. Yelp isn’t even in the top five. Are people really using Facebook for local search? This may seem counter-intuitive to some, but consider that Facebook is by far the most popular mobile app in the world…

Vine has not only cracked the code on mobile video. It has created an entirely new medium. The question for brands and local businesses alike is how to leverage it as a marketing channel. Here are a few ideas about how to test the new app and what to look for as it matures…

National brands have invested nearly all their Facebook resources in building and supporting brand pages for the purpose of publishing content and managing customer relationships at the corporate level. But these brands don’t do business at the corporate level.They do business at the local level through large, brick-and-mortar networks. When it comes to Graph Search, these physical locations and their corresponding local Facebook pages are what really matter…